In this Research Article, Marcus Altfeld & team identify a TLR8 gene mutation causing immune overactivation and inflammation in two siblings, linking genetic change to immune system dysfunction and disease: Immunology.
14 Hamburg Center for Translational Immunology;
15 German Center for Child and Adolescent Health (DZKJ), partner site Hamburg; and.
16 Institute of Medical Microbiology, Virology and Hygiene, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
This surface protein complex for the Andes virus is a mushroom-shaped structure called a Gn-Gc tetramer. To map the 3D structures, the team first produced virus-like particles that mimic a real virus, but without the genome that makes a virus infectious. They then used a cryo-electron microscope—which shines an electron beam through a frozen sample and detects the shadows created by molecules—to reconstruct the three-dimensional structures of the Gn-Gc tetramers on the surface of the virus-like particles.
But there was a twist: To obtain extremely high-resolution structures, the researchers painstakingly identified and isolated shadows from only the tetramers that were pointing sidewise relative to the electron beam and ignored those pointing in other directions. This allowed them to borrow a reconstruction method typically used on individual proteins.
The resulting structures have an extremely high resolution of 2.3 angstroms, meaning details the size of just a couple of atoms were effectively captured. That’s enough to represent a transformational improvement over another team’s model of the tetramer from a few years ago, at a resolution of 12 angstroms, still tiny but large enough to produce some key inaccuracies – ones effectively corrected with the newer method and resulting structure.
These latest structures show the Gn-Gc tetramer in a particular state before it has infected a cell. For vaccines or antibody therapies to be most effective against a hantavirus, mimicking surface proteins at this pre-infection stage is essential. ScienceMission sciencenewshighlights.
Hantaviruses, transmitted from rodents to people, have a death rate approaching 40%. They’re found around the world, and because there are no approved vaccines or treatments, they’re among the pathogens of highest concern for future pandemics. They made news in the United States last year when Betsy Arakawa, the wife of actor Gene Hackman, died from a hantavirus infection in New Mexico in March.
New findings published in the journal Cell about the Andes virus, a hantavirus endemic to the southwestern U.S. and other parts of North and South America, represent a crucial first step towards much-needed vaccines and antibody therapies for this and other hantaviruses.
Hereditary spastic paraplegia refers to a group of disorders characterized by progressive spasticity of lower extremities. The Genetic Nomenclature Study Group found differing frequency of variant types across 3 HSP genes: ATL1, SPAST and REEP1.
The PubMed literature search and articles obtained through additional sources yielded a total of 239 articles for HSP–ATL1, of which 70 were eligible, 531 articles for HSP–SPAST, for which 187 were eligible, and 334 articles for HSP–REEP1, of which 31 were eligible (Fig. 1, Supplementary File_HSP Article Screening Log).
By classifying these articles according to study type, we found that the most common were genetic screening studies (36.3%), family studies (30.4%), followed by, case reports/series (23.2%), and other/mixed-type studies (10.0%). While genetic screening studies were the most common study type for HSP–SPAST and HSP–REEP1, family studies were the most common study type for HSP–ATL1 (Table S2).
Researchers have identified a new type of blood-based biomarker test for Alzheimer’s disease that measures structural changes in proteins, providing more information on the underlying biology of the disease than standard blood tests. The findings, published in Nature Aging, also provide new insights into how Alzheimer’s disease biology may differ between males and females.
“This work introduces a fundamentally new, blood-based approach to detecting and staging Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Richard Hodes, director of NIH’s National Institute on Aging (NIA). “By revealing protein structural changes associated with genetic risk, symptom severity, and sex differences—features not captured by existing biomarkers—this research could enable earlier diagnosis and more effective clinical trials.”
Using a technique called Hi-C analysis, which looks at how DNA is arranged in three dimensions inside the nucleus, the team found that at this transitional point the genome’s three-dimensional organisation becomes less structured and chromosomes become more separated inside the nucleus.
Creating sperm and eggs in the laboratory (in vitro) remains one of the greatest challenges in reproductive biology. To study this process, scientists use primordial germ cell–like cells (PGCLCs), which are lab-generated cells derived from embryonic stem cells that mimic the embryo’s earliest reproductive cells. However, these PCGLCs often fail to complete all the steps of meiosis, making it difficult to create functional sperm and eggs in petri dishes.
After studying the process in germ cells from the embryos, the team studied lab-generated mouse PCGLCs to see if the centromeres migrated to the periphery of the nucleus in vitro too, but they did not see the same phenomenon.
“The presence of this chromosome conformation in embryonic germ cells, but not lab-grown cells, suggests that this structural change could be required for meiosis to proceed properly, and could explain why meiosis is so difficult to recreate outside the body,” says the author, “but we need to do more work to fully characterise the process before we can say for sure.”
“Our study has uncovered a previously unknown and frankly very surprising restructuring of genome architecture that occurs in developing germ cells, which we believe is critical for a successful execution of meiosis,” says the senior author. ScienceMission sciencenewshighlights.
In our cells, our DNA carries chemical or ‘epigenetic’ marks that decide how genes will be used in different tissues. Yet in the group of specialised cells, known as ‘germ cells’, which will later form sperm and eggs, these inherited chemical instructions must be erased or reshuffled so development can begin again with a fresh blueprint in future generations.
In recent years, mRNA in lipid nanoparticles (mRNA–LNPs) has emerged as a promising strategy for treating numerous conditions, including COVID-19, various cancers and chronic genetic disorders. To date, this technology has not been successfully used for pancreatic diseases, but that could be about to change. In a paper published in Nature, scientists from China report the development of a new lipid nanoparticle drug-delivery system specifically designed for the pancreas.
Lipid nanoparticles are a special class of fat-based carriers that encapsulate and deliver nucleic acids such as messenger RNA into cells. Among the reasons they have not worked for the pancreas until now is that most LNPs naturally accumulate in the liver and spleen. That means the therapeutic molecules they carry can’t accumulate to high enough levels to be beneficial.
However, the research team realized that while the liver and spleen are wrapped in a dense, protective outer layer called a capsule, the pancreas is only covered by a thin layer of connective tissue. They wondered if these organ capsules act as a biological filter. If so, they could perhaps design nanoparticles large enough to be physically blocked by the walls of the spleen and liver, leaving the pancreas as the only place to go. They named this discovery the capsule-filter-mediated pancreatic-targeted (CAMP) mechanism.
Cellular reprogramming is one of the technologies most associated with longevity. The field was created in 2006, when Shinya Yamanaka showed that a cocktail of four transcription factors, commonly known as OSKM, can cause de-differentiation and massive rejuvenation of a cell, creating an iPSC (induced pluripotent stem cell). About a decade later, partial reprogramming was demonstrated in vivo, where a more subtle application of the factors led to rejuvenation without compromising the cell’s identity.
Today, this field is maturing quickly, with its first clinical trials just around the corner. Academic teams and companies are working on dozens of directions and applications. We asked four experts, all involved in reprogramming-related biotech companies, to talk about their companies’ approaches and the opportunities and bottlenecks that the field faces and to offer predictions for the near and not-so-near future.
What I find most compelling about cellular reprogramming is that it revealed aging to be, at least in part, an actively maintained biological state rather than irreversible accumulation of damage. The discovery that somatic cells retain a latent capacity to reset their epigenetic and functional identity fundamentally changed how we think about cellular plasticity, identity, and time.
Join us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/MichaelLustgartenPhD
Discount Links/Affiliates:
Blood testing (where I get the majority of my labs): https://www.ultalabtests.com/partners/michaellustgarten.
Blood testing with LifeExtension.com: https://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-101614996-15750394
At-Home Metabolomics: https://www.iollo.com?ref=michael-lustgarten.
Use Code: CONQUERAGING At Checkout.
Clearly Filtered Water Filter: https://get.aspr.app/SHoPY
Epigenetic, Telomere Testing: https://trudiagnostic.com/?irclickid=U-s3Ii2r7xyIU-LSYLyQdQ6…M0&irgwc=1
Adult sleep GWAS-derived polygenic scores demonstrated comparable associations with corresponding sleep phenotypes in Adolescents, suggesting genetic influences on sleep persist across developmental stages.
Question Do genetic variants that are associated with adult sleep/circadian phenotypes influence sleep phenotypes in adolescents?
Findings In a population-based birth cohort study (N = 3903), genetic influences on all adult sleep phenotypes (sleep duration, insomnia, daytime sleepiness, napping, and chronotype as indexed by polygenic scores derived from adult genome-wide association studies) were associated with their corresponding sleep/circadian phenotypes in adolescents aged 15 years.
Meaning Genetic variants identified in adult genome-wide association studies may also be relevant to a variety of sleep phenotypes in adolescence, suggesting that these variants index sleep phenotypes during a key developmental stage in which sleep disturbances typically emerge.